It is still pursued today on a limited scale in Oaxaca and Costa Rica using techniques that do not destroy the tiny mollusk.Only thirteen Mixtec dyers are still extracting purple dye from Purpura sea snail along the Oaxacan Coast. Evidence exists to prove that dyeing with various species of shellfish was practiced on the Atlantic Coast of England, ancient Asia, particularly Japan, Central and South America and beyond. And the spiny murex was just one species used for dyeing. Intensive research by today’s biologists, chemists, archeologists and ethnographers, reveals that the practice of shellfish dyeing extended far beyond the Mediterranean area and was indeed a global phenomenon. The Empress Theodora, the wife of the Emperor Justinian, dressed in Tyrian purple from the 6th century.
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